Afr 110n Lesson 7
The Post Colonial Education Legacy
- curriculum development - prioritizition of western education - reinforcment of nexus between education and social inequality - non-native languges as languge of instruction
The start of the colonial period changed the conditions under which Africans were educated. This period also saw an increased diversity in the types of educational institutions used for formal instruction and training.
A major goal of the colonial enterprise was the transmission of western ideals. In addition, colonial governments were interested in developing local human capital as a strategy for meeting the labor requirements of the economy. In particular, there was a need for an educated civil service in order to assist in the administration of colonial territories. In French and Portuguese colonies, the spread of formal education was also used as a strategy for creating a small class of "assimilated" Africans who were familiar with the norms, expectations, and schooling systems of their colonial masters.
For example, by 1959, after 500 years of colonial rule, about 97.8% of the total populations of the Lusophone (Portuguese) countries of Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde were illiterate (Potholm, 1984; Tordoff, 1999). In Morocco, only 3% of the population received western education, while in the Gold Coast (Ghana), about 5% of the population had been educated (Altbach, 1988; Foster, 1965). At independence, in the 1950s and 1960s, the literacy rate in the colonies therefore remained extremely low.
Colonial education was provided mainly by the colonial government and missionaries
Not surprisingly, because the intent in colonial education was not to produce critical thinkers, instruction at the colonial schools employed the method of rote memorization in colonial languages - English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. The use of European languages in the schools devalued the significance of local languages, since they provided access to European jobs in the small modern sector economy. Where local languages were not used as languages of learning, this devalued them, as they were not viewed as languages of education. Educated Africans began to perceive their own languages as backward and irrelevant within a modern society based on European values and behavior (Abrokwaa, 1992). The rote memorization method discouraged the development of rational, scientific, and critical thinking skills, as Africans became passive participants in the classroom teaching and learning process.
Europeans assumed that Africans had no previous knowledge that could be useful in the classroom and, consequently, that Africans could not think for themselves. This assumption, which drove the colonial curriculum, instilled a fear of questioning authority and an aversion to demanding justifications for decisions taken by school authorities. This "meekness" was reinforced by excessively religious teaching that emphasized obedience and produced for the colonialist companies and businesses docile and compliant workers who "accepted" their low status within the colonial state and the economy. Religious groups also expected their African priests and congregations to obey rather than resist the injustices of foreign rule.
It is important to also note that formal and informal systems of education included the socialization of boys and girls into assigned roles in preparation for adulthood and the upkeep and preservation of society. This did not mean that such assigned roles were hierarchical, nor were men considered superior to women; each gender role was independent and autonomous, complementing the other in the service of community building. Girls were taught motherhood and marital responsibilities, hygiene, cooking, agriculture, and weaving, while boys studied fatherhood and marital responsibilities, hunting, fishing, war, agriculture, goldsmithing, and blacksmithing.
However, both genders studied traditional laws, religion, conflict resolution, and music and dance. Indigenous education offered children of different age groups the type of education necessary for their physical, psychological, and spiritual development. To summarize, education was utilitarian in purpose; education was imparted in rhythm (harmony) with nature and the environment, and it served an important social function (Rodney, 1972).
In recent decades, many African countries have experienced pernicious declines in their educational infrastructure as a result of structural reforms prescribed by the World Bank and the IMF. During the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs in the 1980s and 1990s, declines in government spending reduced the availability of teaching materials, while widespread poverty reduced the affordability of education among the poorest households.
In recent years, however, there have been renewed efforts to increase access to schooling, especially at the primary level, as a way of meeting the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. Consequently, by 2008, almost all countries in sub-Saharan Africa had enacted policies geared towards the provision of free, universal access to primary education.
Despite these developments, other challenges remain. There are still significant inequalities in the availability of, access to, and quality of education found across Africa. For example, there is considerable variation in access to schooling in urban and rural areas, reflecting decades of disproportionate government investment in educational institutions in urban areas over those in rural areas. Currently, access to the best schools is higher in Africa's cities, and the quality of schooling falls precipitously as one moves out of the cities into rural areas.
Major variations in school enrollment rates also continue to exist across countries. Primary school enrollment rates range from a high of one hundred percent among school-aged children in South Africa to about thirty percent among their counterparts in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Chad. Furthermore, although Africa's youth literacy rates increased over the last two decades, there are significant differences in literacy across sub-regions. In 2008, for example, only seventy-six percent of youth were literate in sub-Saharan Africa compared to about ninety-four percent in North Africa. Across countries, youth literacy rates range from one hundred percent in countries such as Gabon, Zimbabwe, and Cape Verde to thirty-seven and thirty-nine percent in Niger and Burkina Faso, respectively.
While there was an abundance of missionary schools, relatively speaking, government schools were few and far between. These government schools were located mostly in the administrative centers and limited to the children of the few Africans who rubbed shoulders with the colonial administrators. They stressed teaching and learning of basic English Language and Arithmetic, instruction meant for business purposes.
Mission schools introduced literacy in indigenous African languages, especially in the early years of schooling. However, missionary schools placed emphasis on teaching and learning of English and religious instruction. English or any of the colonial languages were necessary, especially since Africans provided services as translators of the Bible into local languages. Literacy in indigenous local languages and some proficiency in colonial languages was largely driven by a desire for proselytization by missionaries. The mission school curriculum taught mainly reading and writing, with additional instruction in some basic Arithmetic.
An even more deleterious pattern of unequal access to education in Africa is associated with gender. Males are more likely to be enrolled in school than females in most African countries, with the exception of South Africa and Namibia. Research on dropout rates also indicates that girls are more likely to drop out of school before the fifth grade than boys are. In addition, gender disparities in schooling have been found to be higher among children in secondary than in primary schools. Possible explanations for these differences include the patriarchal attitudes found in many African countries that were further emphasized by Europeans during the colonial period.
Notwithstanding these challenges, however, African countries continue to view education as a channel through which economic development can be achieved. With improved investment in schooling, reductions in educational inequalities, and the revitalization of indigenous knowledge systems, the prospects of educational development in Africa are likely to be much better than they were in the past.
Progress in educational development since the end of colonialism has nevertheless been constrained by a number of demographic, structural, and socioeconomic realities
One of these realities is rapid population growth and the fact that the youth constitute a high proportion of the continent's population. As Africa's population of children increased, so too did the demand for schooling, especially at the primary and secondary levels. Accordingly, between 1960 and the year 2000, the number of children enrolled in sub-Saharan primary schools increased by more than five hundred percent, from 13 million to approximately 80 million. Along with these increases came a considerable growth in government expenditure to expand educational infrastructure such as school buildings, books, and supplies.
During the pre-colonial period, several forms of non-western educational institutions were established across sub-regions of Africa. In Ethiopia, for example, the Orthodox Church began providing educational services to nationals of the country as far back as 304 AD.
Other notable historic educational institutions include the Islamic institution of higher learning founded in Morocco around 859 AD, followed by the establishment of Al-Azhar University in Egypt in 970 AD, and Sankore University in Timbuktu, Mali, which was founded around the 12th century.
Colonialism left Africa with an educational legacy that affected curriculum development, prioritized western education over indigenous schooling systems, and strengthened the nexus between education and social inequality. Another legacy of colonial rule is the continued use of European languages such as English and French as the primary languages of instruction. Increasingly, however, research indicates that the teaching of indigenous languages to children in schools now occurs in many African countries. This is more likely to occur in former British colonies than in former Portuguese and French colonies.
Recognizing the growing significance of formal education for development, newly independent states placed considerable emphasis on the expansion of schooling, instruction in indigenous African languages and the restructuring of the educational curricula inherited from the colonial period. One consequence of this was a new emphasis on teaching students subjects that more appropriately served the needs of African countries.
In general, children were taught to conform to social norms and to uphold the philosophy of the whole or the good of the group always, and also to learn the importance of mutual interdependence. Children learned the value of respect for the elderly based on age and seniority (Oyewumi, 1997). They were also taught the accepted social behaviors and norms, the accepted forms and manner of speech, obedience, and the importance of cultivating the spirit of generosity and sharing with others.
The African child was thus educated to follow a strict code of morals and behavioral patterns, and such moral codes helped to establish law and order and stability within the society. The social milieu offered a wide range of knowledge areas, including history, music, dance, and stories of the heroes and leaders whose past contributions and bravery had helped with the growth and survival of the group to the present day. This knowledge was imparted to the younger generation to discourage individualism and selfishness among them and also to instill in them the spirit of communalism.
Colonial education was a form of education meant to ensure the colonial status quo; it helped to undermine the authority and knowledge of African traditional elders, family, and community leaders, which had sustained the people for centuries. More importantly,the colonial curriculum emphasized the superiority of European cultures over African cultural traditions, beliefs, and values. For example, in the French colonies of Ivory Coast, Benin, Senegal, and Morocco, children were taught that their ancestors were not African but French (Altbach, 1984). This colonial indoctrination through western education produced educated Africans who believed that they were French, and, as a result, they decried and detested their African cultural traditions.
The French, on the other hand, regarded these same educated Africans as backward people whose cultural traditions were primitive and barbaric, which meant they could never really become true French citizens (Davidson, 1991). However, not all colonialists imposed their languages on Africans. For example, in British colonies, the British colonialists pursued indirect rule; i.e., a policy of ruling through local chiefs. This policy was driven by a "dual mandate." In terms of the dual mandate, African cultures and languages were to be preserved from any form of "bastardization" by separating groups in terms of ethnicity, language and religion. Learning of English was not mandatory as there was never any assumptions of Africans being assimilated or becoming black Englishmen and women. However, Africans felt the need to learn the language in order to get jobs as tax collectors or some other low level clerical jobs in the colonial government
In their eagerness to redeem the lost souls of Africans, the mission schools introduced the boarding school system, which removed African children from their families, cultural traditions, and belief systems, and placed them into boarding houses administered by European teachers and school officials. In these boarding schools, the children were taught European values, attitudes, and behavior patterns, while the medium of instruction was based on the specific colonial language of the colonizing nation—either French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, or German.
The boarding house system alienated African children in the schools from their own societies and changed their values, morals, and attitudes towards their own people and cultures. Conversely, they were never accepted by the colonialists as their equals despite their academic achievements within the European educational systems. However, the mission schools produced more western-educated Africans, and most of the first African leaders emerged from such schools, including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.
Colonialism not only instituted an inferior type of education in the African colonies, but it also left lasting legacies of dependency into the post-independence era.
The colonial government and the missions provided scholarships for higher education in Europe to promising Africans, some of whom never returned to Africa. Those who returned remained "European" in their attitudes and lifestyles, alienating them from their fellow Africans. Others became the compradors (middlemen), an elite group who would not only take over power at independence but would also assist the former colonialists in their neo-colonial efforts into the heart of Africa.
Significantly, however, even before the founding of these institutions, Africa had a long tradition of using established systems of oral communication for the transmission of social traditions, norms, and knowledge from one generation to the next.
The curriculum content of indigenous education grew out of and embodied the social, economic, political, and cultural lifestyles of the people or groups involved. The environmental conditions usually dictated the nature of the economic activities that could be carried out, including farming, fishing, hunting, pastoralism, and trading. It also included the teaching and learning of craftsmanship, as well as the production of objects that had practical and cultural value.
These included pottery, textile and basket weaving, animal skin tanning (for making drum heads), iron-smelting for spears, arrows, and axes, shoes, and woodcarving. Music and dance also formed a significant part of the curriculum, which required children to learn not only how to make music, but also the special skills, knowledge, and ceremonies required to construct the musical instruments - drums, flutes, xylophones, harps, and horns.
The curriculum was both formal and informal. The formal curriculum involved apprenticeship in the study of drumming, dance, hunting, fishing, religious ceremonies and rituals, healing techniques, blacksmithing, goldsmithing, weaving, and carving. The informal curriculum embodied the study of family and community values, morals, taboos and norms, and parental and marital obligations; these aspects of the culture were taught by the family, elders, and community members.
An important aspect of the colonial education system and its school curriculum was that it devalued the status of African women by restricting their access to education (Oyewumi, 1997). The general perception of the European colonizers was that women should be homemakers and concentrate solely on reproduction; education belonged to men.
The few African women fortunate enough to receive European education were restricted to studying mainly domestic science (homemaking), needlework, sewing, cooking, and child-rearing. Boys were supposed to study arithmetic, geography, science, and the like—subjects that were required for jobs within the public sector. European colonial education therefore undermined the status of African women and re-shaped gender relations in Africa.
Colonial education was provided mainly by the colonial government and missionaries from the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Anglican, and the Roman Catholic denominations, which operated in the colonies alongside colonists and European companies. It must be pointed out that these missionaries supported their government's colonial goals and economic activities, as they had also done during the Atlantic Slave Trade. The missionaries were determined to convert "pagan" Africans to European Christian doctrines and dogma, since they regarded it as their mission to save African souls from hell.
The missionaries needed to introduce formal European education in the colonies to enable Africans to read the Bible and, in turn, allow educated Africans to read to their family and community members and thus disseminate Christianity throughout the continent. The dual goals of these Christian missions led them to build several denominational schools, which, compared to the colonial governments, provided greater access to western education to a larger number of African children. However, the curricula of the mission schools emphasized the study of religion more than other subjects.
Sadly, traditional political structures and inheritance systems were also changed to require ethnic leaders to possess university or college degrees. Indigenous African education, though relegated to the background of current affairs of the African society, still forms an integral part of the general education of Africans, since the ethnic groups continue to hold onto their various cultural traditions and customs.
The pre-colonial African society thus had a solid foundation, which sustained and regulated the social, economic, political, and cultural needs and practices of the people. European colonialism undermined and transformed these institutions into imported western institutions, which were quite alien to the African way of life.
Colonial education was introduced mainly to provide formal western education for European children in the colonies, the mulattoes (children of mixed ancestry), and the few emerging African businessmen.
The result was that the majority of Africans remained untouched by western education; the fee-paying system of the schools also ensured this limitation. The vast rural population was severely affected by this colonial neglect - a problem that would confront post-colonial African governments and hinder national development as a consequence of mass illiteracy.
However, the arrival of European colonialists in the late 19th century and their imposition of European values, norms, and cultural practices introduced drastic changes into indigenous African educational institutions through shifts within the social, economic, political, and cultural practices of Africans. Colonialism ended the authority of the family as provider of education to children. It downgraded and devalued traditional knowledge and skills, labeling parents and elders of the community as illiterates, simply because they lacked knowledge of European formal education.
The traditional forms of knowledge, therefore, were deemed invalid and were discarded in favor of the new European "valid" knowledge systems. Above all, access to public office positions fell into the hands of an elite minority of western-educated Africans, who also began to perceive their cultural heritage as "backward" (Foster, 1965). Manual or indigenous economic activities, such as farming and weaving, were perceived as work fit for the "uneducated" living in rural areas, and the goal of education changed to focus on the acquisition of modern European-sector employment based on western or European academic qualifications.
Finally, colonial education failed to engage African students in empirical research of any kind; this curriculum also lacked any emphasis on the study of science and technology to assist with Africa's true economic and social development and thus generate true freedom from economic dependency on Europe.
The type of education provided was also limited to the elementary school level and the establishment of very few secondary schools, resulting in a lack of training of adequate numbers of qualified personnel for African economies and societies at independence. In short, colonialism not only instituted an inferior type of education in the African colonies, but it also left lasting legacies of dependency into the post-independence era.
The method of instruction was generally based on the application of the oral tradition, which assisted children in learning directly and orally (through memorization) from the adults. Children learned through listening, demonstration, participation, imitation, and practice.
They also learned through children's play, including acting as hunters, husbands, and wives, cooking, parenting, and making toys to represent indigenous animals, birds, and spirit deities. Morals were also taught through simple stories, as well as the philosophical complexity of riddles and proverbs. Children's ability to decode these riddles and proverbs assisted in the development of their minds.
The natural environment became the classroom, including the community and the home, with the teachers being the parents, elders, and the rest of the adult community.
This meant that each adult member of the group was expected to contribute towards the education and general upbringing of every child, although the immediate family members were first and foremost responsible for this task. Each adult member therefore had the cultural and moral obligation to discipline any child anywhere within the community; failure to execute this right meant a failure of one's duty to the group and to the next generation.
Africa has had a unique historical experience with education compared to other continents. The invention of hieroglyphs, the first writing system known to man, in Egypt around 3400 BC provided the basis for the development of the modern methods of written communication which are now used across the globe.
Throughout its history, Africa has also experienced the development of traditional and informal education systems, many of which predate the arrival of modern, western education.
Educational systems in contemporary Africa partly reflect the influences of these historical and modern factors.
Yet, over the years, African societies have had to develop new educational institutions to respond to increased demands for training as well as the continent's shifting demographic realities.
